I am very sympathetic to the situation you describe. I certainly think it is possible that Annie is describing something that happened. I think the author did a fair job of representing the allegations, finding the right balance between disclosing that they were unable to corroborate the allegations without dismissing them.

That said, "recovering" memories as a therapy does not pass any sort of sniff test and it doesn't take a concerted effort to discredit the concept. Human memory is very malleable. Patients with mental health issues (which could predate abuse, or could be caused by abuse) are often in search of answers and that makes them very vulnerable.

Could a memory be buried deep in our subconscious, forgotten, only to return to the surface later? Sure, we all forget things and then remember them when triggered by something, whether that's a smell or sound or something else entirely. But can we engineer that process, with any degree of reliability? How can we even begin to reliably reverse engineer the triggers?

I think it is also important to keep in mind that Annie is rich, and the health care available to rich people can be very predatory. There are endless examples of nonsense therapies for all types of health, from ear seeds to treatments for "chronic Lyme".

Memories that return organically due to a trigger are a world apart from "recovered" memories, we shouldn't conflate them. If Annie's memories were triggered in adulthood, sure, that's really no different than remembering something... but "recovered"? That is something else entirely.

Correct me where I'm wrong, I'd like to learn your perspective, maybe there's a missing piece.