"Gaslighting" is another one that seems quite a decent heuristic; I find that people using this to be less than reasonable in a well above-average number of cases.

Of course, as with any heuristic it's far from perfect, and the author may very well be in the right here. It's impossible to tell from this piece and there are a few eyebrow-raisers – so all I can give this story is a shrug.