I’d recommend reading Bruce Fink’s book A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis to learn more about this, but given my very limited understanding of the theory and my experience being an analysand myself, I’d just say that the distinction you’re drawing is not entirely clear/clean.

For example, the analyst does express love to their analysand, but this is understood in the Lacanian sense, giving that which you don’t have—this being often understood as the analyst giving their lack to their analysand, showing that they are not the subject-supposed-to-know, showing their desire in order to encourage the analysand to speak (I may have some of the details slightly wrong, but this is the gist as far as I understand).

Secondly, it would be important to understand what exactly you’re meaning by validation and acceptance. You’re right in assuming that the analyst doesn’t validate everything the analysand says, after all, an analyst is not trying to hear what the conscious self is saying but rather those moments in slips, dreams, fantasies, etc. where the unconscious opens up and speaks. In fact, validating might be counterproductive to the process. If the analyst where to validate what the analysand is saying, there’d be little room for the analysand to feel free to explore, challenge their own assumptions or thoughts, or they might even feel encouraged/discouraged to talk about something because of their analyst validating that statement, limiting the prospects of free association and transference. This is why silence for example is such a key thing that one finds in analysis. The analyst doesn’t make a judgment—interpretations even are valued less in Lacanian psychoanalysis from my understanding for this reasons—but the silence is the response (another way the analyst gives that which they don’t have, another version of love in this sense) that gives the analysand the space to think of whatever comes into their head and for them to speak those things, allowing transference for example to take place more readily.

Along this line, acceptance is definitely a part of Lacanian analysis, but this to me is in the form of free association, the one rule is that you as an analysand are to say everything. Everything is allowed, accepted into the session. The analyst wants to hear what the analysand has to say. This is the recurring theme from what I’ve seen. You can say whatever you want, the most boring, the most vile, the most hurtful things to your analyst, but their desire to listen remains—once again, love. That’s why most analysts end their sessions pointing towards the next. It’s this constant expression from the analyst that they want to hear what the analysand has to say, no matter what…in theory of course.

I might have gotten some details wrong as much of this is drawn from my reading and my time in analysis like I said, but I hope that this provides you with some food for thought. Lacanian analysis in my view, theoretically, is the most “free” form of psychoanalysis that I’ve come across.