I think we can be both of those things, or a mix. How do we know?--that is one useful thing about having a therapist--they can be more or less neutral and give us their objective feedback. You can tell your T things from your life and he/she can tell you if your effort fell short or if you could have done more or that you did great and don't listen to your co-worker/spouse/friend who trashed you, etc. Hopefully we can develop that ability to know ourselves--and therapy can help with that--but while we are in therapy, we have the opportunity to use the T's (more or less) neutral viewpoint to gain more knowledge. I have definitely had my T tell me that my efforts (e.g. in parenting or some other area) fell short and suggest that I do more.