About Jay Stringer
Jay Stringer guides men and women to freedom from sexual brokenness so they can pursue the lives they desire.
Therapist · Researcher · Author
I believe your struggles are the beginning of your story, not the end.
I’m Jay Stringer—a licensed mental health counselor and researcher. For 15+ years I’ve helped thousands make sense of unwanted patterns and unmet longings and turn them into a path for healing and growth. My work equips you to read your story and form desire into your greatest ally.
What I do
I help people engage the forces shaping their desire, sexuality, and relationships so they can move toward lives of freedom, connection, and meaning. My practice and programs focus on the patterns we most want to change—pornography use, affairs, low desire, conflict, and relational distance—and the longings underneath them.
Research & writing
I’m the author of Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing (100,000+ readers), grounded in a study of nearly 4,000 adults and used by clinicians and communities worldwide. My forthcoming book, Desire: The Longings Inside Us and the New Science of How We Love, Heal, and Grow (Random House, 2026), offers a new framework for five core longings—wholeness, growth, intimacy, pleasure, and meaning—and shows how to form desire into a force that restores connection and purpose.
Training & programs
- Unwanted Guide Training (13 weeks): small-group consulting for therapists, coaches, and leaders serving people in sexual struggle.
- Sexually Healthy Organizations (1-day intensive): equips mental health professionals, clergy, and organizational leaders to build healthier cultures around sexuality and desire.
Education
MA in Counseling Psychology and MDiv, The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. Trained in both counseling psychology and spiritual formation; integrates trauma-informed care, adult development, and narrative work.
Work with me
Professional training, keynotes, interviews, and personalized intensives for individuals and couples.
Jay lives in New York City with his wife, Heather, and their two children.
The Breakthrough Approach in Unwanted
Sexual Difficulties Reveal Our Way to Healing
Conventional Approaches Fail
For too long, the overwhelmingly standard response to sexual difficulties has been to address it through the lens of lust management, even declaring war against it.
Sadly, attempts to conquer unwanted behaviors fail to guide us into the lasting freedom we desire.
Unaddressed Problems are the Key
There is another approach. It begins by listening and getting curious. Internet searches, fantasies, or low desire might influence you to feel shame, but far more, they reveal the unaddressed and therefore unresolved stories of your lives.
Sexual problems are roadmaps. They pinpoint the location of your past harm and highlight the current roadblocks that keep you from growth.
If we pay attention, our sexual difficulties will reveal the way to healing.
A Blended Approach
Most approaches to addressing unwanted sexual behavior, be that porn, infidelity, or low desire are singular and formulaic. We now know enough about spirituality, culture and the neuroscience of trauma, abuse, and out-of-control behaviors to know all of them must be integrated to create lasting freedom from unwanted sexual behavior.
Because our approach blends all of them, it works.
You can outgrow unwanted behaviors. We will show you how.
Get the Book
START YOUR JOURNEY
Begin Your
Transformation
THE WORKSHOP
a 3+ hour virtual workshop. Get hands-on time
with Jay himself as you apply what you read
in Unwanted.
Dive Deeper Into
Your Story
3-DAY INTENSIVES
how your story is shaping your unwanted sexual behavior or betrayal trauma with 12 hours of individual coaching.
