- Kasia Urbaniak, a former dominatrix, has been teaching both women and men ways to communicate more powerfully and effectively for the past five years.
- It's based on what she knows about power dynamics, and is backed by social science, too.
- She told Business Insider her top tips for improving relationships.
Kasia Urbaniak is wrapping her arm gently around mine. “I want to reach 50,000 women,” she tells me, and I sense I might be one of them. Her quest: to put more women in positions of power, and re-shape the ways people interact.
The former dominatrix, dressed in a soft black sweater and leather, metal-studded boots, is comfortable commanding a room. But she also knows when it's OK to be quiet, kick off her shoes, pause and ask questions, or roll up her sleeves and inch closer to her colleagues to make a point.
For Urbaniak, learning how to become more "dom" and less "sub" is really just about learning what people need, and meeting them where they are. She says this keen ability to "read a room" and engage with a client or a colleague is an essential human skill — and something we can take from her dominatrix power playbook into the streets.
Urbaniak has utilized her skills to create a new kind of communication school called "The Academy." At the New York City school, she coaches women (and men, too) to change how they communicate, and learn her jujitsu style for "verbal self-defense."
But the class isn't just about shutting down creeps. Urbaniak wants to completely transform the way we talk to each other in all our relationships.
The number one relationship-crusher
Urbaniak says one of the biggest issues we face in all kinds of relationships is what she often refers to as "speechlessness"— the idea of being frozen or stuck in a moment, and feeling like you don't have the agency to speak up. It can be crippling when you're dealing with a predator or a bully. But it's also a problem in relationships with people who we're close to, like a partner or co-worker.
"The idea of being good, by being low maintenance, is an absolute falsehood," Urbaniak says. She argues it's often what people don't say in conversations that's most dangerous to their future.
This speechlessness can be a learned habit, but the easiest way to break out of it, she says, is by saying something in the moment. Bringing up an awkward comment, or giving immediate feedback about something that makes you uncomfortable, is the easiest way to change the situation.
Open communication can be crippled by social rules about perfection and politeness
A small new study of doctors and residents at Harvard's Brigham and Women's teaching hospital in Boston backs Urbaniak up, finding that feedback is crucial for good work, and when politeness and excellence are prized above moment-to-moment constructive criticism in a hospital setting, a dangerous culture of silence reigns. 
To change this, Ubraniak gives her students tips on ways to practice breaking out of speechlessness. If what someone is saying is unclear, phrasing a response like, "It seems like what you're saying is..." might help. Or if you're frustrated someone just took credit for an idea, note what's happening right as it happens, like an athlete catching a pass: "Quickly pick up the ball," she says. "And go, 'Exactly what I was saying, thank you!'"
She says if you let an uncomfortable situation like this fester, it makes things worse.
"With added time, there's a sense of betrayal," she says. "It also impacts all of the interaction in between, so there's just a lot more to clean up."
Throwing out dated gender scripts
Social scientists know that as we age, our brains change to respond to more social cues. By the time we're adults, our communication pathways are set up, and we develop habits about how to interact with each other. Some studies suggests that ways men and women respond to negative feedback can be quite different: women more often (quite literally) turn their gaze inward, while men look out. 
But Urbaniak believes it's time for those old habitual ways to morph into something new. She says the social reasons for some of those behaviors are fading, and it's time to change up the gendered script.
In her classes, she encourages students to ask more questions, and expose what's not being said. Urbaniak says one of the simplest ways to shift a gaze outward is to start asking simple, probing questions, ones that don't involve any "I's." Like, "is that true?" or "why do you think that?"
"Up until not very long ago, the best thing a woman could do for herself and her status and her future was to marry well," she says. "This is all new. We have to have a lot of compassion right now, for women and for men."
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