Phew. Sorry for the wait, guys - it was an absolutely insane week at the clinic. I'll be making a killing in overtime this week, though. Silver linings!
So! To answer your first part - its actually a two parter, just because the answer to that question is yes, and then no.
You see, schools are really ramping up the intensity of their screening for OT programs universally. This is largely because the awareness of OT as a profession has skyrocketed over the past decade or so, and it continues to do so exponentially. Also, if you haven't noticed either, many prospective students for PT have switched paths into OT for the simple reason of less schooling. The DPT requirement for entry level practice was a somewhat recent change that roughly equates into 1-2 more years of schooling in a grad school environment, where tuition is just deadly. Why go to school and pay more money to enter a profession that does many of the same things as an OT (and gets paid about the same, sometimes a little less)?
Is the market getting more competitive? Nope. Once you get your degree, companies will be clamoring over themselves to get your employment. By all means, go onto indeed.com and just look up occupational therapy, for example. Look at all those jobs! Those are generally just entry level jobs, too - the rabbit hole goes so much deeper. If there's one thing you guys don't have to worry about, its competition for your jobs.
OT indeed did get it's roots in psych - at Sheppard Pratt Hospital, specifically (a great factoid for school, also a mere half a mile walk from where I went to school, Towson University in MD). It's a bit of a niche kind of job for OT anymore, since OT's presence in psych has dwindled down to a meager 3% out of all OTs. I wouldn't go as far as saying that it's location based, but I generally find that there are more psych jobs near or in cities (but this isn't always the case). My experience in psych as an OT was in the acute inpatient and PHP (partial hospital program) settings, where I lead group therapy on coping skills for community reintegration, as well as some individual treatment. I LOVED the group therapy, it still to this day was some of the most effective and fun therapy I've ever delivered. The individual kind of thing, though...I actually did find tedious. You'll find that people tend to be more open to learning about coping skills when they're surrounded by people with similar issues - in fact, group therapy is truly about the art of having the group run itself, with you as a facilitator.
As for working abroad, I don't actually know if there's an agency for it, or even a network...but I can find out for you. I know some classmates went and did their fieldwork in Australia, and there was some sort of network available for them. I'll check into it for you.
