PySide2 How to unassign current layout and assign a new one to a window widget? .count() gives attribute error? - python-3.x

Question

I'm new to PySide2, started using it yesterday. I'm teaching myself from the API documentation and info I find online. I'm trying to make a small app with it to teach myself. My idea for the app was using a View like model, as you go pressing on certain buttons I delete the current layout on the window and present you with an entire new one. This foments modularity as each layout wouldn't be dependent on each other but instead fully individual. (Each part of the app is broadly different and requires almost all widgets to be deleted).
However whenever I search how to delete a layout or remove all of its widgets I always encounter a piece of code like this (This is actually from a question asked 6 months ago):
def clearLayout(self, layout):
if layout is not None:
while layout.count():
item = layout.takeAt(0)
widget = item.widget()
if widget is not None:
widget.deleteLater()
else:
self.clearLayout(item.layout())
Yet when I implement something like that, even the exact same function and then call it using, self.clearLayout(self.layout) I get the following error:
File "GUI.py", line 45, in home
self.clearLayout(self.layout)
File "GUI.py", line 16, in clearLayout
while layout.count():
AttributeError: 'builtin_function_or_method' object has no attribute 'count'
I'm assuming I probably forgot to import something important, but I can't just seem to find what. Here is a list with my imports.
import sys
from PySide2.QtWidgets import QApplication, QLabel, QLineEdit, QWidget
from PySide2.QtWidgets import QDialog, QPushButton, QVBoxLayout, QLayout
I also installed PySide2 using pip install PySide2 on command line (Anaconda). Do I have to do something else?
Thank you so much, sorry post is so long, just wanted to give you the whole information from the beginning :)
EDIT:
Further testing has led me to realise I cannot use any of the virtual functions of QLayout, or its subclasses. Apparently I have to implement them myself within the code. I believe it could be this. I don't know how to implement them though. I'm going to keep trying.
EDIT 2: Some people asked for a reporducible example so here is the code that doesn't work.
import sys
from PySide2.QtWidgets import QApplication, QLabel, QLineEdit, QWidget
from PySide2.QtWidgets import QDialog, QPushButton, QVBoxLayout, QLayout
class Window(QWidget):
def __init__(self):
super().__init__()
self.setWindowTitle("Program")
self.setGeometry(300, 300, 300, 300)
self.start()
def clearLayout(self, layout):
if layout is not None:
while layout.count():
item = layout.takeAt(0)
widget = item.widget()
if widget is not None:
widget.deleteLater()
else:
self.clearLayout(item.layout())
def start(self):
self.startbutton = QPushButton("Start App")
layout = QVBoxLayout()
layout.addWidget(self.startbutton)
self.setLayout(layout)
self.startbutton.clicked.connect(self.home)
def home(self):
self.clearLayout(self.layout)
self.message=QLabel("Welcome to homepage")
layout=QVBoxLayout()
layout.addWidget(self.message)
self.setLayout(layout)
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = QApplication([])
window=Window()
window.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())