Friends who know what this feels like are worth a great deal. Leaning on them as your therapy is a different thing, and it tends to go badly for everyone.

What the research says

Two experiments found that belonging to several social groups went with less self focused attention among socially anxious people, which suggests shared identity pulls attention outward. That is the good part of a friendship like this, and it is associational rather than causal. Separately, scale development work suggests that worry about the future, rumination about the past and going over a social encounter afterwards are largely one process in different clothes, which is a reason to be careful about doing that process out loud together.

Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.