Books
Jay’s book, Unwanted, began an important conversation about how our stories not only shape our unwanted behaviors but also provide a path to healing.
AWARD-WINNING BOOK
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness
Reveals Our Way to Healing
Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing is a ground-breaking resource that explores the “why” behind self-destructive sexual choices. The book is based on research from over 3,800 men and women seeking freedom from unwanted sexual behavior, be that the use of pornography, an affair, or buying sex.
Jay Stringer’s (M.Div, MA, LMHC) original research found that unwanted sexual behavior can be both shaped by and predicted based on the parts of our story―past and present―that remain unaddressed. When we pay attention to our unwanted sexual desires and identify the unique reasons that drive them, the path of healing is revealed.
Although many of us feel ashamed and unwanted after years of sexual brokenness, the book invites the reader to see that behavior as the very location God can most powerfully work in their lives. Counselors, pastors, and accountability partners of those who experience sexual shame will also find in this book the deep spiritual and psychological guidance they need to effectively minister to the sexually broken around them.
Get copies of Unwanted from these booksellers and booksellers everywhere.
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Free Chapter
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Unwanted Trailer from Jay Stringer.
Don’t Just Read The Book.
Engage Your Story with The Unwanted Digital Workbook
GUIDE & MOBILE APP
Unwanted Digital Workbook
Ready for transformation? Reading can only get you so far. Until you apply it to your life, nothing changes. That’s why the Unwanted Digital Workbook exists: to bridge the gap between information and transformation.
You’ll not only read the book, you’ll read your own unique story. You’ll rewrite it.
Then transformation can begin! Learn more.
Dive Deeper Into
Your Story
Take a life-changing deeper dive into how your story is shaping your unwanted sexual behavior or betrayal trauma with 12 hours of individual coaching over 3 days.
ASSESSMENT
Sexual Behavior Self-Assessment
Unwanted sexual behaviors are a roadmap to healing, not a life sentence to sexual shame or addiction. Unwanted sexual behaviors like the use of porn, extra-marital affairs and hook-ups are not random. Porn searches and sexual fantasies can be both shaped and predicted based on your life story. Learn more.
(Bulk assessments for church groups and therapists are also available here.)
ONLINE COURSE
A 5-Month Path to Freedom
The Journey Course offers a unique approach to freedom. In this 5-month online path to freedom, participants will uncover unaddressed stories, past harm, and roadblocks that hinder their journeys. This integrated approach combines spirituality, culture, and neuroscience for lasting healing from sexual brokenness. You can outgrow unwanted behaviors! Let us guide you to true transformation. Learn more at thejourneycourse.com.
Praise for Unwanted
Resource of the Year in Counseling and Relationships (Outreach Magazine)
Goes Where Most Work Stalls
“Unwanted is, without rival, the best book on broken sexuality I have ever read. It is heartbreaking and hope-restoring, and with immense kindness it proceeds to where most work stalls and refuses to enter. Jay’s research is groundbreaking. No one has pursued these dark waters with as much light, offering data-bound research. Even more, Jay offers the heart of the gospel in a manner that doesn’t trivialize sin or addiction but lifts the battle up to ambivalence we have with freedom. This book will be a classic that anchors us in brilliant research, soul honesty, and biblical reflection.”
Author, Healing the Wounded Heart and God Loves Sex
Refreshingly Honest and Humble
“Wow. This book is a weapon for freedom and flourishing in a world bombarded with sexual pain and brokenness. If you are tired of the blame-and-shame methods filled with guilt and fear around sex, Jay offers a life-changing alternative: restored sexual wholeness and flourishing. Sex is good? Indeed. Refreshingly honest and humble Jay refuses avoidance and despair around the most painful oppression of our time. Using a divine strategy, with incredible skill, Jay enters our brokenness and finds the keys to our sexual freedom and wholeness within the depth of our pain. Get this book. Read this book. Let the healing and freedom come.”
Stunning Depth
“Jay Stringer’s Unwanted demonstrates a depth of insight and wisdom that I found stunning! I have been counseling men and women in the church who are battling with sexual brokenness for over thirty years and have written fifteen books on the subject. Yet I found Jay’s grasp of the subject profound, and the graphic illustrations he used to summarize various points were worth the price of the book alone. It will truly help many come of out of their shame and finally find freedom.
“Stringer is a ‘Top gun’ and I would fly with him into combat any time!”
Founder of Pure Desire Ministries International & Conquer Series
More Praise for Unwanted
“Unwanted changes the conversation on sexual brokenness for this generation of believers. Jay Stringer engages the “why” beneath our sexual shame with groundbreaking research and the wisdom of a counselor.”
Josh McDowell
Author and Speaker
“Unwanted enters the heartache of sexual brokenness and reveals the deepest longings within us for redemption. Recognizing how evil seeks to misdirect our longings, Jay illuminates how even our sin can reveal important truths about ourselves and our unique path to redemption. Through groundbreaking research and a heart for the Gospel, Stringer invites us to the critical task of finding hope and meaning within our sexual lives. It clearly shows how Christ invites us to depth of desire, not death of desire.”
Christopher West
Author, Fill These Hearts: God, Sex, & the Universal Longing
“As bleak as the landscape of sexual brokenness may appear, God always raises up his people to proclaim a path to healing and redemption. Jay Stringer is one of those voices. Unwanted is a courageous, insightful work that challenges us to look beyond the what into the why of our sexual sin. This book will undoubtedly equip many on the journey to freedom.”
Dr. Juli Slattery
Author, Rethinking Sexuality
“Sexual brokenness is the most significant and under addressed topic affecting men today. Jay’s work opens the door to a new conversation for all of us who need language to talk about it more transparently. Jay’s powerful research and clinical insights show how our earliest stories plant seeds that go on to hold tremendous power over us in our adult lives. Unwanted is going to lead you to an understanding of your life that can guide you to freedom.”
James Anderson
President/CEO New Canaan Society
“Jay Stringer is one of those rare leaders whose life will leave an indelible mark on generations to come. In his book, Unwanted, there’s an incredible convergence of story, science and theology that makes it so accessible it becomes transformational. It is the most impactful treatise I’ve ever read on how to understand that our pain and brokenness is actually a pathway to full healing and restoration. I’m convinced that Unwanted addresses the source of sexual brokenness in our world. If we want to see our hearts restored and dismantle the forces that seek to ruin the beauty of sex, this book will be our roadmap.”
Jason Pamer
Writer and Producer // The Heart of Man
“A thorough theoretical framework and nuanced vocabulary are critical tools when dealing with unwanted sexual desires, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors. Even with these, the journey to persevere requires real stories of personal discovery and hope. In Unwanted, Jay Stringer provides not just a set of tools to understand these matters, but offers a story and vision for those who find themselves in dark places.”
William Struthers Ph.D.
Author, Wired for Intimacy
Over the past 25 years of ministry, I’ve witnessed many men and women floundering in a sea of hopelessness due to their own (or a spouse’s) sexual brokenness. That’s why I’m so excited about and grateful for Jay’s work in the field of sexual addiction and restoration. If you’re hungry for deep healing, or searching for practical ways to help others heal from unhealthy emotional entanglements and sexual dysfunction, Unwanted will be an incredibly sharp tool in your toolbelt!
Shannon Ethridge, M.A.
Author, Every Woman’s Battle
“Unwanted’s breakthrough research into the origins of sexual brokenness convincingly shows why tips and techniques to combat it have failed to lead to the freedom we desire and are designed to enjoy. Unwanted is a life-giving room of grace where all of us can find resolve from the heartache of sexual shame. Jay Stringer invites you to know your story and dare to believe that you will be loved more, not less by what it reveals. The culture, including the church, has needed this book for decades. Thousands will experience God’s kindness and healing through it.”
Dr. Bruce McNicol, Trueface, President
Co-Author, The Cure
“If sexuality is anything, it’s complicated! This thing that involves our whole selves—body, mind, spirit; this thing that can compel our behavior but is also shaped by our habits. In Unwanted, Jay Stringer shines a spotlight on one important aspect of our sexual lives—our personal history, and particularly the way our sexuality intersects with our brokenness over time. By inviting us to be compassionate and curious about our story, he helps us to look beyond the shame and embarrassment that so often deadens us and toward real, authentic, healthy ways of relating to ourselves, our loved ones, our community, and even God.”
Debra Hirsch
Author, Redeeming Sex
