Just an idea.

Maybe you could have an attack animation outside of battle to initiate some sort of pre-emptive strike in battle. 
Obviously, this pre-emptive strike wouldn't be as strong as a normal attack, but it could still be helpful.

Also, it might be possible to make it so you can use psi attacks outside of battle to get past certain obstacles, for example
maybe you have to use pk freeze to get across a body of water, or maybe you have to energize a switch with pk thunder
to get to the next area.