I think that wasn't me... But it's not my first thread about it. Maybe some other user recommended that in that thread. Anyway, I agree with and Lacan himself said no one goes to analysis to "know oneself better" or something like that. It begins with a complaint, a form of suffering of some kind. Of course, we all have problems, but if they are not weighting on you, the analyst would just shrug. There is no check up exam, because there is no sense of a normal or correct way of living for them to check like you would check your stomach. The only checking that happends is precisely how do you feel about what is going on to you. If it's alright, job's done.
If I came with a practical problem, like "I have no money", the logical solution would be just as practical "save money, get a job, etc". Analysis does not concern that. However, if you feel to say something like "well, but I can't get a job" or "I don't want to save money", etc. and here comes how you relate to it and where there may be a problem for you to solve in analysis, "why not?", and it begins. That's why I said that psychanalysis helped me cut my own bullshit, and not because my analyst said it was bullshit, but because the process makes what I say very evident, the nonsense, the full of sense, the fantasies, obstacles, etc.
I stand by everything said. It's a misconception to think the analyst is trying to get inside your head in any way, he will never just take what you say and derive a bunch of explanations and theories, he won't say anything that you are not saying it yourself. You're just not hearing it. And that's also why you can't get in his head either even if you try, because he is not saying anything that is his. The analyst only asks for you to speak. You'll reveal yourself there and you'll try to hide yourself at times too, but it's you with you.
If you mean if what I know about Lacan and psychanalysis outside the clinics gets in the way of analysis, then I'd say yes and no. You don't have to know anything of any of this to go to analysis and speak. Sometimes I drew conclusions from what I've read that were used by myself, without I knowing at the time, to disguise what I was actually living. On the other hand, reading about it also made me get over what I thought analysis should be like. So it worked both ways. I wouldn't recommend reading on Lacan or Freud to someone who is suffering, just to go to analysis.