Colin A Ross

Repressed memory controversy

Ross's promotion of the controversial repressed memory hypothesis has been challenged in lawsuits in the USA and Canada.

Alleged Victims

Roma Hart, a former patient of Colin Ross', litigated against him in Canada. Hart stated in an interview, "[…]I was regularly in seclusion [whilst an in-patient of Colin Ross], a lovely concrete walled and floored hole where I was locked in for days at a time. Sometimes [I would be] thrown in, and I’d have the huge bruises to show for it. [The seclusion room] was often used for “behaviour modification”, I suppose. You see, when I had seizures from the drugs [Ross had over-medicated], Ross told the nurses that I was just switching personalities to one called “Blue” that had seizures, so they should throw me in seclusion whenever that happened. One evening when [the seizures were] really bad, Ross had the nurses take me down to the ward below and strip me before they dropped me onto the floor. That [particular] seclusion room had a bad fluorescent light that flickered really badly. I laid there until the next day when they put me in a wheelchair to take me back up to my other seclusion room. Those nurses, as I told you before, followed Ross around like panting puppies and did anything he said. I remember when I had my blood pressure taken my nurse asked me if I knew why my blood pressure was so unstable. I was going to answer “the drugs?”, but before I could say anything she said, “it’s because each of your personalities has its own blood pressure.” And, of course, [there was] the time that I was nearly killed from an overdose on the ward and I barely made it to the nurse’s station, gasping for breath, (respiratory arrest) [trying to] get their attention. The nurses became angry at me and demanded that I go back to my room. I fell to the floor and crawled back to my room still struggling with every ounce of my strength for every breath. This was extremely frightening and I was so close to dying. I made it to my bed and the nurse took my blood pressure. She wrote it on my bed sheet as a matter of fact: 190/180. The following day after I regained consciousness another nurse came in and took my blood pressure: 60/50. Well, she remarked, you MPD patients are fascinating. [...] Ross had told the staff that night that I had “pulled myself in” and that it was an “MPD coma”, not a real coma."

Claims of paranormal ability

In 2008, Ross applied for the James Randi Educational Foundation's One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge with the claim that energy from his eyes could cause a speaker, receiving no other input, to sound a tone. In 2010, Ross published experimental data that supports his scientific hypothesis that the eyes emit energy that can be captured and measured in the Anthropology of Consciousness, a journal of the American Anthropological Association. During correspondence with Steven Novella of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, he conceded that the equipment he was using was a biofeedback machine attached to his laptop, and that the laptop was responding in a well-understood way to an eye blink. However, he claimed that he could still send energy beams out of his eyes, and was working on modifying the software to ignore an eyeblink. His claim has not currently been tested by the JREF. In 2008, he was granted the tongue-in-cheek Pigasus Award.

Paranormal Contributions to Science

In 1989, Ross developed the Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule (DDIS), a standardized test used as a tool in diagnosing Dissociative Disorders. The DDIS is viewed as controversial due to questions relating to Paranormal Activity, Cult, and Supernatural of the interview schedule.