It is not the lack of this or that, but lack of being whereby the being exists." (Seminar: The Ego in Freud's Theory) In "The Direction of the Treatment and the Principles of Its Power" (Écrits) Lacan argues that desire is the metonymy of the lack of being (manque à être): the subject's lack of being is at the heart of the analytic experience and the very field in which the neurotic's passion is deployed. In "Guiding Remarks for a Convention on Feminine Sexuality" Lacan contrasts the lack of being related to desire with the lack of having (manque à avoir) which he relates to demand.