When analyzing psychoanalytical works like Lacan, or even Freud or Jung for that matter, it's critical to understand that the language of early childhood development or early childhood memories is largely abstract. Instead of trying to invent a new schema for understanding the mind, Lacan turns to the odd phenomenons of a child's existence. The central image for the conflict of existence is a child gazing at its own reflection which moves exactly like itself but opposite. Lacan argues that the child's assumption that the image reflects its own image helps the child to perceive itself, and since the self-image is so helpful, it basically continues throughout life, constituting what we call the ego.
Ego-based understandings of the subconscious or dream realm are obviously similar in kind to the writings of Freud and Jung, but for Lacan, the mystery is solved by the cataloguing system of the mind expressed most clearly through language. Imagine a parent saying to the baby, "That's you!" while the baby looks at its reflection. For Lacan, that alone is enough to create the sense of the ego that humans exist with.
Other arenas of Lacan's writings are also somewhat Freudian. Lacan also describes the nature of subconscious experience as a product of unremembered childhood experiences that were formative. By formative, we mean that new paradoxical experiences caused the child's mind to draw conclusions that the adult might still believe about the world throughout their life.
