Community Highlights: Meet Liz Long Rottman of Prosopon Therapy

Today we’d like to introduce you to Liz Long Rottman.

Hi Liz Long, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My entrepreneurial spirit showed up early. When I was nine, I started a grilled cheese business in my neighborhood. I didn’t make any money, but it was my first taste of creating something from nothing, and I was hooked.

I was a high achiever in high school and learned how to work hard. Then I went to St. John’s College in Santa Fe, where I learned how to think and how to learn. My original plan was to go into law, but I quickly realized it wasn’t a personality fit. I have a strong orientation toward truth and accuracy, and while I deeply respect lawyers, I found it hard to take sides for the sake of argument.

So at twenty-three, I had what I like to call an early midlife crisis. I went to massage school, planning to chill out, find myself, and see what came next. After graduation, I took my first real business risk—starting a private massage practice right away. It turned out to be a great decision. Running a massage practice is one of the simplest, lowest-overhead businesses you can start, and it gave me invaluable experience running something of my own.

As I worked, I began collaborating with functional medicine practitioners and treating clients whose issues were as much psychological as they were physical. Many of them, I later learned, were working through trauma. That realization pulled me toward somatic bodywork and trauma conferences, and eventually toward pursuing a master’s at Naropa University in Boulder.

I closed my busy practice in Austin and moved to Colorado, determined to build a psychophysical therapy practice that combined talk, touch, and movement. I started private practice right after graduating and have continued learning ever since, working with mentors, studying at different institutions, and refining what has become a unique psychophysical approach to mind–body issues.

In 2023, I had my son, Waylon, which meant I had some “free time” when he napped. I don’t entirely know why but I became interested in enterprise-level business and long-term organization sustainability. While I do not intend to operate at that level, my study emboldened me to expand what I had. I hired a couple of therapists to work under my name and I also took a leap and signed a lease for a suite of eight offices—an absolutely terrifying move at the time, given the $7,000 rent. I definitely lost sleep over it, but today every office is full, and our suite has grown into a thriving community of practitioners who meet regularly to support each other.

Now, I teach at Naropa University and organize trainings for the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, roles that continue to stretch me both clinically and entrepreneurially. I still see myself as a student of the work, always learning, always building, but I’m proud of how far this once nine-year-old grilled cheese entrepreneur has come.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Does anyone have a smooth road? I definitely haven’t. Time isn’t linear, and neither are our paths.

Some of my biggest struggles have come from being an eccentric and sensitive person. I’ve always fit in in some ways and never fit in in others. That used to be painful, but now it’s something I really value about myself. I also have a hard time working hard on things that feel pointless, so in my twenties I had to experiment a lot, especially with my little massage practice, to understand why we do certain things in business.

Marketing, for example, has been one of the hardest things to grasp. You can put in so much work, branding, writing, social media, and still have no idea what actually draws people in. Over time I’ve found that networking is the most powerful form of marketing because it’s relational. I enjoy it far more than the digital side, which I’m still learning to navigate. Sometimes I have to step back from online marketing altogether when I lose the felt sense of meaning behind it, even if I can intellectually understand its importance.

Another major challenge has been reshaping my relationship with money by learning to see it as a tool rather than a reflection of my value. That shift has made it much easier for money to flow in and out of my life in a healthier way.

I’ve also faced challenges in offering a form of therapy that reintroduces the body into the healing process. On one hand, what I do—psychophysical therapy—has deep historical roots. Early thinkers like Pierre Janet, Wilhelm Reich, and even Freud in his early work understood that body and mind are inseparable. Yet somewhere along the way, physicality became taboo in therapy. I don’t know how people do therapy without it. It’s one of the most useful levers we have. While I don’t use it every second, it’s indispensable when key moments arise.

Still, not everyone understands or accepts this approach. Resistance often comes from cultural fear, training gaps, or simple unfamiliarity. That can be frustrating, but as I see the results of the work, I feel less bothered by skepticism. The work speaks for itself.

I’ve bootstrapped my business from the beginning—no investors, no funding. That has meant working multiple jobs over the years, including my ongoing roles with Naropa University and the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. Fortunately, those roles now form a cohesive ecosystem—almost like a little permaculture garden where everything nourishes everything else.

There have been many seven-day workweeks. This path isn’t for the faint of heart. I’m actually pretty risk-averse by nature; part of me still wonders what life would have been like if I’d taken the stable lawyer route. But through a lot of personal growth work, I’ve changed my relationship with risk. Now, when I take a leap, I know exactly why I’m doing it.

I’ve also learned that the hardest part of risk-taking isn’t the leap, it’s the waiting that comes afterward, when you’ve invested everything and haven’t yet seen a return. That’s the stage that demands the most emotional regulation. Luckily, emotional regulation is the very foundation of my work, so those skills transfer well into entrepreneurship.

As you know, we’re big fans of Prosopon Therapy. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
My business is called Prosopon Therapy. My original practice was Prosperity Bodywork, so I suppose I’ve stayed loyal to my P’s, but this name has a deeper meaning. Prosopon is a Greek word with multiple interpretations. It refers to the mask or face through which we speak our essence into the world, and it also evokes the changing roles we play throughout life, like actors on a stage.

That symbolism felt perfect to me. My work is all about supporting people through change and helping them bring forth their true selves through the layers of identity, adaptation, and survival that life creates.

At Prosopon Therapy, we specialize in the intersection of mind and body, especially for people whose suffering doesn’t fit neatly into a single category. Many of our clients live with medically unexplained symptoms, autoimmune conditions, Lyme disease, health anxiety, or attachment-related addictions—issues that are both physiological and psychological. We also provide couples counseling and specialize in complex trauma (C-PTSD), which often underlies both relational and physical distress.

Our team shares a common thread: we all began in the bodywork and health world and later entered the field of psychotherapy. One of my colleagues worked as a yoga teacher, another has 15 years of experience in functional medicine through an Ayurvedic lens, and both, like me, discovered that integrating psychotherapy deepened their work immeasurably.

What sets us apart is our interdisciplinary approach. We don’t just acknowledge the body—we work with it. We learn about our clients’ medical conditions and collaborate with their healthcare providers when appropriate. We believe that complex clients deserve a complex team—that no single modality or practitioner holds all the answers.

I’m proud that Prosopon Therapy occupies this niche. It’s rare, and I can’t think of many others doing this exact integration of psychotherapy, bodywork, and medical collaboration. If there are others out there, I’d love to meet them, because we’re stronger together. I’ve been seeing more occupational, massage, and physical therapists moving into somatic therapy work, and I’d like to see more psychotherapists moving toward the body, too.

Prosopon Therapy stands for integration, embodiment, and transformation—bringing the mind, body, and spirit into dialogue so people can finally make sense of what’s happening inside them and move toward real healing.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Patience and the ability to find my way back to rationality when emotions are running high. Emotions hate waiting. But learning to pause, to delay gratification, and to stay still when every impulse wants to move has prevented countless unnecessary problems in both business and life.

Patience, to me, isn’t passive. It’s an active skill; the art of holding steady while reality unfolds. Knowing when not to act has been just as important to my success as knowing when to take a leap. When its time to be patient we can turn toward selfcare, friendships, and fun.

Pricing:

• Pricing and insurance FAQs can be found on the website

Contact Info:

• Website: https://prosopontherapy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prosopon_therapy/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProsoponTherapy