Sexual Addiction Screening Test (SAST-R V2.0)

A confidential 45-question screening developed by Dr. Patrick Carnes, whose research established much of what is understood about compulsive sexual behaviour. It takes about ten to fifteen minutes and gives you a core score plus four subscale scores.

Who this screening is for

You might consider taking it if you feel out of control with pornography, affairs or hookups; if you find yourself keeping secrets, lying about or hiding your sexual behaviour; if you feel intense shame or guilt afterwards; if you have promised yourself you would stop and then found yourself back in the same cycle; or if you think your sexual behaviour is affecting your partner, your family, your work or your faith.

Wanting to check is not the same as having a problem, and taking a screening does not commit you to anything. Plenty of people take it, score low, and stop worrying.

What the screening measures

Alongside a core score, the screening reports four subscales. On each one, a score of two or higher is flagged as an area of concern.

Loss of control

How much difficulty you have managing sexual impulses once they start — whether you are able to stop at the point you intended to. This is the subscale most people recognise first, because it is the gap between what you decided and what happened.

Preoccupation with sex

How much of an ordinary day sexual thoughts take up, separate from the behaviour itself. Preoccupation is often the part that is least visible to anyone else and the most exhausting to carry.

Relationship disturbance

Whether the behaviour is disrupting your relationships — with a partner, with family, with the people closest to you. This includes the effect of the secrecy itself, which often does more damage to a relationship than the behaviour being hidden.

Affect disturbance

The mood and emotional changes tied to the behaviour: the shame, guilt or flatness that tends to follow it, and sometimes the relief or escape that precedes it. This subscale is often what turns a habit into a cycle.

How it works

Forty-five questions, ten to fifteen minutes, answered privately. Nothing is timed and there are no right answers.

At the end you see your core score, your four subscale scores, and a plain explanation of each one. You can have a copy emailed to you, and if you are already working with a therapist you can have it sent to them as well. Your results are kept confidential.

What your score means

The core score runs from 0 to 20.

A core score of 0 to 5

You may not show strong indicators of compulsive sexual behaviour at this time. That is worth taking at face value. If something still does not sit right with you, the screening simply has not captured it — and it is perfectly reasonable to talk to someone anyway.

A core score of 6 or higher

Your answers suggest a pattern that may meet the criteria for compulsive sexual behaviour and that would benefit from therapeutic support.

This is not a diagnosis, and it is not a verdict on who you are. What it indicates is that the pattern is unlikely to resolve through willpower alone — which is the thing most people discover the hard way, usually over years of private attempts.

The four subscale scores

A score of two or higher on any subscale is flagged as an area of concern. It is common for the core score to sit in one range while a single subscale stands out on its own. Where that happens, the subscale is usually the more useful place to begin.

What this screening is not

This assessment is intended for informational and self-reflection purposes only. It is a screening tool, not a diagnosis, and it does not replace professional medical or psychological advice.

A screening asks a fixed set of questions and counts the answers. It cannot know your history, your circumstances, or anything it did not ask about. Only a conversation with a clinician can do that.

If your score concerns you

The first thing worth saying is that this is treatable, and people do recover. Compulsive sexual behaviour is sustained by secrecy and shame, which is exactly why it survives so many private attempts to stop. It tends not to survive being brought into the open with someone who is not shocked by it.

You can read about how treatment works, about therapy for individuals, about work with couples, and about our intensives. There is also a self-paced recovery course if you would rather start on your own.

If you are the partner of someone who is struggling

Partners are not bystanders in this. Discovering a partner's compulsive sexual behaviour is genuinely traumatic, and partners need support in their own right — not only as part of somebody else's recovery.

We work with partners directly, and have written about the stages of partner recovery and about intrusive thoughts after discovery. There is also a self-paced healing course.

Learn more

If you want to understand the territory before deciding anything, we have written about sex addiction, pornography addiction, the different types of sex addiction, relapse, and the overlap between neurodivergence and sex addiction.

You can also read our frequently asked questions, meet our team, browse our other self-discovery tools, or get started when you are ready.