Board Revokes Psychologist’s License : Health: The action against a county official was taken on grounds of negligence involving social relations with a patient.

The California Board of Psychology has revoked the license of Marianne E. Maxwell, a top county health official who also worked as a private counselor, citing “gross negligence” because she had socialized with a patient.

The psychology board contended that Maxwell was guilty of gross negligence when she maintained an extended social relationship with one of her patients that included gifts, ski trips and an invitation to use her Jacuzzi.

Maxwell could not be reached for comment Monday. She did not contest the charges, board President Louis Jenkins wrote in his decision, because she was “neither emotionally prepared nor financially capable” of doing so.

The American Psychological Assn.’s code of ethics bars “dual relationships” with a patient--any socializing or business outside of therapy--because such a relationship could potentially harm the patient.

In its administrative complaint, the psychology board’s experts had accused Maxwell of gross negligence in failing to meet the association’s standard of practice, board Executive Director Thomas O’Connor explained.

Maxwell directs the county Health Care Agency’s office of policy and planning and heads a high-profile committee that has been seeking solutions to the county’s severe lack of prenatal care for low-income women.

In the early 1980s, she founded and then directed the county’s Indigent Medical Services, a health-insurance program that targets the working poor. According to the board’s complaint, she has also maintained a part-time, private psychology practice from an office on Bristol Street in Santa Ana.

The psychology board claimed that Maxwell “cultivated and maintained” a social relationship with a patient that began during therapy in November, 1983, and continued until about June, 1986. Its officials said that the relationship included “exchanging gifts, going on ski trips and other trips” with the patient, inviting the patient to participate in social events in her “home and Jacuzzi” and encouraging a friendship between the patient and Maxwell’s husband at the time.

Under state administrative procedure, Maxwell is barred from practicing psychology for a year but may seek to regain her license after that, O’Connor said.

County Health Care Agency Director Tom Uram had no comment on the case Monday but, last March, when the complaint first received public attention, he said it “would have no bearing on her position” with the county because she works as an administrator there, not as a county psychiatrist or psychologist.