Metacognition is a sub-portion of self-awareness that does not look at behavior.

That’s fair, I glossed over the “act” part of your statement

‘self-awareness’ changes meaning somewhat depending on whether it’s being used philosophically, psychoanalitically, etc… I am saying your definition is more exclusionary, though, treating it more as a virtue to strive for rather than just an action one takes.

Also fair, but the context here is it being used as a compliment from a therapist

Functionally, if the only self-awareness is accurate self-awareness, then it can only be an advantage, and thus positive.

Ah I see, I misunderstood what you meant by positive; I thought you were referring to the bit about being aware of your strengths.

I do think exclusively accurate self-awareness can absolutely be a disadvantage though.

I would also argue that awareness does not need to be reflective of reality - you can be aware of hallucinations you are experiencing, or you can be aware that you are experiencing hallucinations.

Mm- I think I agree semantically, like technically it can mean that, but it’s pretty confusing. Consider how the session note looks when written each way:

Client reported experiencing auditory perception in the absence of external stimuli.

vs

Client reported awareness of auditory perception in the absence of external stimuli  

The latter, to me, sounds self contradictory