This article, which uses a dialogue between a mental health nursing student and an academic, aims to promote hybridity as an anti-stigmatising resource in mental health work. To achieve this aim, both authors disclose significant details of their past mental health difficulties in a relational autoethnographic dialogue, with excerpts from the first author’s academic assignment work. This highlights the importance of hybrid ‘practitioner-survivor’ identity as an ethical imperative in collapsing the boundaries between professional and user narratives in emancipatory mental health practice.