I am enthused about Richard reading more mid-twentieth-century European philosophy. I think it's unlikely there's much value in approaching Lacan specifically, although this depends on how much context you happen to already have / pick up without specifically targeting that work toward 'preparing to read Lacan'.  Few reasons: 1. Heavy use of word play that doesn't translate well 2. Somewhat confused deployment of mathematical concepts 3. Deliberate embrace of paradox 4. Some confusion in later readers of Lacan between literary, cultural, and clinical applications of his writings (which makes most secondary texts and commentaries of limited usefulness). 5. Limited availability of his work in English (which bifurcates the Lacanian tradition; many French psychoanalysts basically don't think reading only those works available in translation gets you the Real Thing, and they have a stronger case for these writings in particular than they would for any old piece of writing). 6. Heavy reliance on pre-existing familiarity Freud, Jung, post-modernism I mostly found value in Lacan as an aphorist, or as a few nifty transformations you can do to various parts of Freud, and less as a coherent, learnable model (this after ~40-100 hours of effort). Meta: I feel a little self-conscious about something like "Well, now I've twice said 'that one takes a lot of context' without naming where to go to get the context." I really want to avoid making positive recommendations here without first putting forth the effort to see where you're at in more detail than I have so far. Maybe negative recommendations are useful, though!