I believe first and foremost that everyone deserves to be able to protect themselves. You don't learn a martial art just to figure out how to block. There are punches and kicks used to ward off or attack an opponent. I trully feel that spiritual leaders that don't endorse these techniques or others like them want to lessen the empowerment of the following they are teaching.
The psi attack is just one piece of the rung of the psychic ladder. You can only move so far up until you are blocked from advancing altogether. It is a piece that is needed to achieve more advanced workings whether or not it is for an attack. The steps in manipulating energy are basicly learned in the attack approach. Does this mean that you need to start inflicting harm among all those you wish or that you think have done you wrong? For some it might mean yes, other it might no. But these skills are necassary to the psychic development of the seeker regardless of the direction they wish to pursue.
Psychic attack gives the skills necassary to traverse the astral safely and confidently. It is the baby steps needed to carry you to the higher or lower planes that you can adapt to. Can the skills be given another way? Yes I am sure there are but it is not as effective and it takes so many more steps to complete the basic training.
The things I write can be used malevolently but on the same scale I know for a fact that the same skills needed to attack are the same ones that are required to heal. Different approaches and effect but they are the same core traits.
My path is not one of the healer so I shall give the insights in the ways best that I can voice at this time. I am very profficient at what I do. They have served me well in practice and in understanding of core energy manipulation.
It is not my area to determine how these techniques will be used but that the material represented is correct and effective in the best ways I can find it. I can train one in the use but not in their actions.