Therapy is time consuming and resource demanding. However, it is also your way to be seen objectively be someone hat is healthy and who sees several people with same problem every day. That's why it is such s useful tool. It is not a substitute for friends or like-minded, but rather another tool. Personally, I think it is hard to recover without both.
The biggest problem with going with "only" support from friends and others is that you lose objective input as those of us who are ill will typically have too much subjectivity on board to be accurate enough or to know where one is. Likewise, too much objectivity is also not good in a sense that it can make it harder for you to reintegrate within normal social structure and build emotional strength.
Therefore, I really see both as needed and useful. A pill is NOT therapy, although can surely help as well and is sometimes needed. Integrating your subjective world with the objective therapeutic sphere will approach it all from different angles.
Finally, remember that you only spend so much time with physician/therapist and then you have to go in the world and "practice what you learned". I find myself feeling better AFTER a therapy session, but flip back into panic and anxiety mode as time goes. I think this is another important thing with a therapist. Since he/she sees you only professionally and typically not that often, changes are easier to see than whoever is emotionally or socially closer to you.
