I don't read her comment, in this context, as a general statement that crying is negative and not crying indicates progress. Crying can indicate progress in many ways, a bunch of which have been articulated by the people here, but so can a shift away from a crying response (which is not the only way to be emotional, in or out of therapy).

Sometime earlier this year I had a chance to tell someone I just met but trusted about the story of my spouse's death and some upsetting things that happened after it with our extended family. It happened quite a few years ago and I've told the story numerous times to different people, but never without choking up and/or full on ugly crying, or somewhere in between.

There was some kind of different emotionality in this particular telling where I realized that I had greater distance from the pain of loss and betrayal. I felt both connected to the emotions but not the "drama" attached to them. It seemed like I emotionally owned the story and told it in a way that was both factual and that demonstrated how I really felt. It did seem like progress, that the strength of the emotions had lessened and in some way I can't explain, it felt more authentically emotional than the weeping itself. My words and thoughts were more distilled, like my brain had figured how how to communicate with fewer words and greater meaning.

I think emotion as part of talking about experience is usually a sign of some kind of progress. The people I worry about are those who talk about trauma like they are reciting a grocery list. Talking itself is a sign of progress, as opposed to wanting to talk about it but being able. Emotions can manifest in all kinds of ways, and it can be emotional to not cry. I'm not 100%, for me, that crying in therapy is particularly useful as any kind of indicator in therapy. I tend to see it as just one of the many important things that happen in therapy, but it's not my definitive goal, nor have I ever found it to be cathartic per se.