Self-pressure? I cannot spend my work time in leisure time, otherwise I ashame. It is pretty even the opposite that I experienced: I felt ashame in my leisure time to not work to get more progress on my phd.
We were only two phd students supervised by the same pair of supervisors. In fact we saw our supervisors a lot. However this was more in a friend way. Every time we switch to work-related discussions they found excuses to leave or just say that they will take some time later to ask our questions / reveiw our drafts (and this never happen).
In the case of the other student, he was more lucky and find an unofficial supervisor that help him a lot. I find some support from another researcher at the end of my phd. And thanks to him I had some review of my manuscript. This gave me some confidence to finish the writing.