In this paper, it is sketched how the Sort-Jacobi method for the symmetric eigenvalue problem extends to the (−1)-eigenspace of the Cartan involution on an arbitrary semisimple Lie algebra. The proposed method is independent of the representation of the underlying Lie algebra and generalizes well-known normal form problems such as the symmetric, Hermitian, skewsymmetric, symmetric and skew-symmetric R-Hamiltonian eigenvalue problem and the singular value decomposition. It allows a unified treatment of the above eigenvalue methods, including local convergence analysis. *