Using Mourning and Melancholia as his clinical reference, Reid asserts that Hamlet suffered from melancholia during the two-month period beginning with the ghost's disclosure of Gertrude's adultery and concluding with Hamlet's overt hostility toward Ophelia in the 'nunnery' scene. According to this line of reasoning, the melancholia was precipitated by Hamlet's discovery that his mother had been available as a sexual object but now, newly married, was irrevocably lost. Hamlet identifies with Gertrude, and his self-accusation (whore, drab, prostitute) do seem to fit her. The condition is terminated with the open expression of hatred for Ophelia, a transference figure for Gertrude.