While learning Rebbe Nachman of Breslov’s most famous lesson, Azamra (LM 1, 282), we came across the section which says when a person begins to take a good hard look at herself, she is liable to find that she has so many flaws, and such an absence of good deeds, that the forces of negativity hijack her self-condemnation and use it to push her into a bleak depression (God forbid).
And in fact, depression is a real pitfall of examining oneself with too much harshness. But, we still must examine ourselves if we want to grow.