Two things you might want to check, katlover:

1. I'm a little confused myself about this one. As I understand it, the chat here uses popup windows (though there's also a no-popup alternative available). The browser I'm using now (Firefox) has a setting (under Tools > Options > Content) for allowing or blocking popup windows. If you block (the option that I'm using) you also get to specify "exceptions" -- sites that you want to allow popup windows from. I knew I was allowing popups only from a handful of sites... but I don't see psychcentral anywhere on the "Allow" list. I don't chat that often but popups or no, I've never had any trouble getting in.

2. It looks to me as though all of most of the chat functions here use Javascript. Firefox has an option (on the same page as popups) for enabling or disabling Javascript. Mine's enabled; how's yours?

Back in the bad old days before Firefox, the only way I knew to avoid unwanted popup windows was to keep Javascript turned off. That really did prevent popups, along with some other things, and I probably would've had to turn it back on in order to be able to chat here.