Two people worry about this, in opposite directions. One cries every session and wonders whether they are getting worse. The other never cries and wonders whether they are doing therapy wrong.
Neither is a useful measure, and the culture around this work has quietly made tears into a scoreboard.
What crying usually is
A discharge. Something that was held gets released, and the release comes out through the parasympathetic system — which is why people often feel loose, tired and oddly clear afterwards, rather than worse.
It also frequently arrives at the moment of being met rather than the moment of pain. People do not cry describing the worst thing; they cry when somebody says that sounds like it was very lonely, and something lands. That is worth knowing, because it means tears are often a sign of contact rather than of injury.
What it is not
Not proof anything was processed. You can cry hard every week for a year and change nothing, and some people do — the crying becomes the ritual rather than the work. A therapist who treats tears as the outcome is measuring the wrong thing.
Not evidence you have reached the real material. Sometimes the most significant sessions are flat and slightly boring and the change shows up on Thursday.
If you never cry
Extremely common, and not a deficiency. Some people learned early that tears were dangerous, or useless, or cost more than they were worth, and the mechanism went offline. That is a thing to be curious about eventually, not a hurdle to clear before the work counts.
It is worth saying out loud, though — I do not cry, and I know that is not the same as not being moved. A good therapist will simply add it to what they know about you and stop unconsciously waiting for it.
If you cry and cannot stop
Different situation, and worth flagging in the room. Crying that has no bottom, that leaves you wrecked rather than eased, is often a sign the dose was too large — the pacing needs adjusting rather than the feeling needing more room.
The tell is the day after. Discharge tends to leave people lighter. Flooding tends to leave them hollowed out and fragile into the next day. If it is reliably the second, say so; that is fixable and it will not fix itself.
A practical note
Give yourself ten minutes after a session before going back to anything that needs you. Not because you will be fragile, but because the transition is where the settling happens, and going straight from a session to a meeting trains your system that this work is unsafe to do properly.