Inventory for Partner Attachment, Stress & Trauma (Revised V2)

The Inventory for Partner Attachment, Stress & Trauma (Revised V2)—commonly called the IPAST-R V2—is a clinically validated assessment designed to help individuals and couples understand how past trauma, attachment patterns, and relational stress affect their current relationships, especially in the context of sex addiction, compulsive sexual behaviors, and pornography addiction.

While many clients initially seek help because of problematic sexual behaviors or the impact of pornography on their lives, the IPAST-R V2 explores the deeper emotional, relational, and trauma-based layers that often drive these patterns. This assessment is used widely in the field of sexual addiction treatment, including partner trauma recovery, betrayal trauma healing, and relationship stabilization.

What the IPAST-R V2 Measures

The assessment evaluates several core domains:

1. Attachment Patterns

It examines how a person learned to connect with others emotionally, starting in childhood and extending into adult romantic relationships.
This includes:

• Fear of abandonment

• Fear of rejection

• Anxious or avoidant attachment tendencies

• Difficulty trusting or relying on others

These patterns often influence how a person responds to relational stress, intimacy, conflict, and vulnerability.

2. Trauma History

The tool helps identify:

• Childhood trauma

• Adverse family experiences

• Past emotional, physical, or sexual abuse

• Betrayal trauma

• Trauma reenactment patterns

Many individuals struggling with porn addiction or compulsive sexual behavior have trauma histories that were never recognized or validated. The assessment brings these experiences into focus compassionately and clinically.

3. Current Stress and Relationship Impact

The IPAST-R V2 helps clarify:

• How current or past partner behaviors affect feelings of safety

• The emotional impact of betrayal, secrecy, or compulsive behavior

• Levels of fear, hypervigilance, anxiety, and relational instability

• How stress responses interfere with intimacy, communication, and trust

For many partners affected by sexual addiction, the assessment validates their experiences and gives language to what they’ve lived through.

How Eliminating Porn Uses This Assessment

As part of the Eliminating Porn program, clients complete the IPAST-R V2 to create a detailed, trauma-informed understanding of the relational and emotional foundations of their struggles. The goal is not only to address the compulsive behavior but to treat what drives it.

This includes identifying:

• The attachment wounds fueling avoidance, secrecy, or emotional disconnection

• Trauma patterns that may contribute to compulsive sexual behavior

• Stress responses that keep the individual or couple stuck in repeating cycles

• Points of strength and resilience that can help in recovery

Maxim Arbuzov’s Role in Interpreting the IPAST-R V2

As a porn addiction specialist and Certified Sex Addiction Therapist Candidate (CSAT-C), I interpret the IPAST-R V2 results with a trauma-informed, male-focused clinical lens. My goal is to help clients:

• Understand the deeper emotional and neurological roots of compulsive sexual behavior

• Recognize how trauma may be shaping their beliefs, behaviors, and relationship patterns

• Make sense of the fear, shame, or avoidance that keeps them stuck

• Build a roadmap for healing that includes emotional regulation, secure attachment, and relational repair

For partners, the interpretation process validates their emotional experience and provides language for the impact betrayal or compulsive behavior has had on them.

For individuals struggling with porn addiction, it helps us connect the dots between their history, their patterns, and their current challenges—so they can finally break free in a sustainable, meaningful way.