I had a session with my T today, and leaving the building I felt angry and like I wanted to cry. That's pretty common for me actually. I've been seeing this T for almost 4 years. The feeling goes away when I get on the train home and distract myself with looking at my phone or whatever. (having to take a crowded Tokyo train home is the last thing I need after T!)

Today in T we mainly talked about my family and about me wanting to resolve the repressed anger I have against my family. My family is dysfunctional and no one ever talks about feelings. I live in Japan and family lives in the US so I only see them once a year. My T suggested I interact with them based on the here and now, not based on the past. That makes sense to me and I said that. But I said I felt I needed to express some grievances too, like tell my dad that it hurt that he said he would start calling me on Skype but never did. I guess I wanted T to validate my feelings. T said as long as I was doing it for myself and not having expectations for how my family members will respond then it's ok.

Is it normal to feel angry and like crying after a session?

On the bright side I did notice that I'm able to have less unrealistic expectations for my T and think about T more objectively now that I have other outlets for talking about my problems, such as forums like this one, and other sources of advice like self help books.